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I could see how someone might interpret that if they had no reading comprehension skills. I told you the artistic direction I was trying to go for ie the sort of stream of consciousness thought cloud as the character realises his last line of quixotic hopeful defence has been broken and now reality has taken its place, and I was specifically asking for advice on the delivery of such a piece. Your advice hasn't had anything to do with the advice I wanted because your advice was 'don't do that' ie you completely missed what I was trying to pull off stylistically, after god and I repeatedly explained it to you.

If you bothered to read the rest of the /lit/ thread you'd know how gracious I was with feedback and constructive criticism; I'm struggling to be so with you because you completely missed the point, several times over.

Conversing with you in this thread has been the pixelated equivalent of talking to a brick wall. I'm out, I'm not going to spend time arguing with you when you're purposely dodging what I'm trying to do and you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. This isn't me being immature, this is you missing the point over and over again.

Listen, James Joyce didn't sit down in front of a typewriter at 19 and write out the entirety of Ulysses. He wrote quite a few works before that, some good, some bad. But it took him several novels before he reached any level of "mastery". It was only when he reached this point that he was able to work the medium so well.

What I'm trying to say is: I dig your ambition, but this is only your fist novel. You're certainly welcome to write in this style, but it will be shit, and will continue to be shit until you get more experience with pacing, writing conventions, readability, etc.

I'm not trying to jump on you because I dislike you, I'm trying to give you realistic advice so that you can become a good writer. I do want you to be a good writer, that would be awesome, but you need to take baby steps before you can walk, and you need to walk before you can do running back-flips.

Oh solly I wasn't comparing myself to James Joyce, I was comparing the criticism of style and how absurd it sounds. I know what your trying to say but do you remember the part where I said 'this is one of three parts in the novel where this sort of writing is introduced and it's only for like two pages each time'? I'm not trying to write the next Ulysses I'm just borrowing a technique for a chapter end. I appreciate what you're trying to say but you haven't been listening to me.

Solly is right. You're going to get a lot of criticism and you're going to have to learn to deal with it. Belittling people for failing to understand your "artistic direction" is definitely not the right way to go about it. If potential readers don't understand the aesthetic that you are aiming for, then that's your fault, not theirs.

James Joyce never belittled people for not understanding what he was trying to do, at least not in a strict sense. Nora continuously mocked his attempts to try to become a writer and told him consistently that he should have just become a tenor instead. His publishers frequently told him to basically change his style completely, to remove any references to actual people, etc. Pound, one of Joyce's most frequent supporters and exactly the kind of person who you'd expect to UNDERSTAND what Joyce was doing, said of some of the more incomprehensible chapters of Ulysses (like Circe), "Wouldn't it be better if these were written in simple Maupassant?" Joyce was criticized into oblivion. So whilst you're not "comparing" yourself to James Joyce, your point that people didn't criticize Joyce's style/ tell him to change it (amazing as it is) is wrong. They did, a lot.

People will tell you to change your style. It's part of life. I remember writing a short story where I used a bunch of carefully-chosen techniques, I had a certain artistic direction almost definitively in mind, and I was criticized very heavily for not making the reader care enough about my characters and making the story too unrealistic. This is despite the fact that the story HAPPENED to me, so it was surely REALISTIC. But, despite these protestations, the criticism was true. I accepted it, and I'm a better man.

Okay, I took a step back for a few hours to think about the latest responses in here because I don't think you can respond to something objectively if you're, in the moment, reacting to it emotionally. I honestly can't tell whether I should apologise for my previous posts towards Solly and if I lost all sense of humbleness, or if your arguments just don't make any sense. Like I don't understand how someone could build a wall with a certain type of brick/cement and say 'hey guys what did you think of my bricklaying skills' and have everyone else respond with 'knock it down and build a new wall'? And maybe that's valid advice, but is it valid advice in the case when the writing is clearly - and I'm just taking majority opinion here, because I myself am the biggest critic of my own work - not subpar?

Although I'm beginning to think you guys do have a point re: run-on sentences. I finished a short horror story I wrote today (I'm gonna shop it out to a bunch of literary magazines and see if I can get it published) and all critique on it so far has been along the lines of:

'My biggest criticisms are that it's a bit too wordy, you constantly say things in long drawn out sentences with over-complex, polysyllabic words that could be said very simply and very quickly; it doesn't seem to add to the style. I think you habitually overuse commas, too.'

So maybe my stylistic experiment has actually taken over my control of prose completely, or maybe I needed to stop reading David Foster Wallace compulsively.

Well, I open my eyes and I see things. I've seen spirits moving through the walls. I've seen a vortex coming through the wall. I've seen amorphous little balls of light bouncing all around in the front yard through the window. I've seen giant bugs on the floor. I was in a hotel room in Amarillo, Texas, and all I remember is standing on the bed and seeing the whole wall in front of me filled with lights that were [makes popping sound] popping like popcorn out of the wall. Then I'll wake up and I go "Wow, I was standing on my bed and staring at this wall."

I didn't mean to insult anyone or try to make myself out to be better than you guys, I just legitimately cannot understand the arguments of Solly and Hicky.

Well, I open my eyes and I see things. I've seen spirits moving through the walls. I've seen a vortex coming through the wall. I've seen amorphous little balls of light bouncing all around in the front yard through the window. I've seen giant bugs on the floor. I was in a hotel room in Amarillo, Texas, and all I remember is standing on the bed and seeing the whole wall in front of me filled with lights that were [makes popping sound] popping like popcorn out of the wall. Then I'll wake up and I go "Wow, I was standing on my bed and staring at this wall."

Like I don't understand how someone could build a wall with a certain type of brick/cement and say 'hey guys what did you think of my bricklaying skills' and have everyone else respond with 'knock it down and build a new wall'?.

A book isn't a wall, it's a book, and goes through countless revisions before being published. We're not tearing down your wall, we're looking at your wall's blueprints and offering design advice.

Although I'm beginning to think you guys do have a point re: run-on sentences. I finished a short horror story I wrote today (I'm gonna shop it out to a bunch of literary magazines and see if I can get it published) and all critique on it so far has been along the lines of:

'My biggest criticisms are that it's a bit too wordy, you constantly say things in long drawn out sentences with over-complex, polysyllabic words that could be said very simply and very quickly; it doesn't seem to add to the style. I think you habitually overuse commas, too.'

So maybe my stylistic experiment has actually taken over my control of prose completely, or maybe I needed to stop reading David Foster Wallace compulsively.

I'd suggest just reading your work out loud, waiting a week, then reading it out loud again. Gives a much better feeling for the rythm in English. That way you can write a sentence of moderate length. Then add a short one. Then go on your big run-on, with complete disregard for periods, accumulating a verbal soup satisfying to slurp; an occasional semi-colon can also help things along.

A book isn't a wall, it's a book, and goes through countless revisions before being published. We're not tearing down your wall, we're looking at your wall's blueprints and offering design advice.

Okay, I understand where you're coming from. Apologies for hopping on your the day before.

Well, I open my eyes and I see things. I've seen spirits moving through the walls. I've seen a vortex coming through the wall. I've seen amorphous little balls of light bouncing all around in the front yard through the window. I've seen giant bugs on the floor. I was in a hotel room in Amarillo, Texas, and all I remember is standing on the bed and seeing the whole wall in front of me filled with lights that were [makes popping sound] popping like popcorn out of the wall. Then I'll wake up and I go "Wow, I was standing on my bed and staring at this wall."

I'm gonna post up a link to that short horror story I submitted earlier in a few hours. Pretty much all and any critique is welcome for that one.

Well, I open my eyes and I see things. I've seen spirits moving through the walls. I've seen a vortex coming through the wall. I've seen amorphous little balls of light bouncing all around in the front yard through the window. I've seen giant bugs on the floor. I was in a hotel room in Amarillo, Texas, and all I remember is standing on the bed and seeing the whole wall in front of me filled with lights that were [makes popping sound] popping like popcorn out of the wall. Then I'll wake up and I go "Wow, I was standing on my bed and staring at this wall."